Trump accuses Obama of prior knowledge about Russia's meddling

"Well I just heard today for the first time that Obama knew about Russian Federation a long time before the election, and he did nothing about it", Trump said in an excerpt of his interview on Fox News' "Fox and Friends" released Friday.

"Such attacks can not be tolerated and the United States must take immediate measures to ensure that those responsible are held to account", Sens.

"He had a specific goal to defeat (Democratic nominee) Hillary Clinton and that explains the huge coordinated effort from the botnets to the trolls", Merkley added. They also told Obama that the administration should indict those responsible in US courts. It's what the United States government does next.

The CIA notified Obama in August of previous year that Russian President Vladimir Putin was directly involved in the campaign to interfere in the election, according to the Post.

Trump has, since the beginning, denied any coordination with Russian officials and has called the investigation a "witch hunt" to hamper the work of his administration even as an investigation into a possible collusion between his campaign and Moscow, and Russia's role in the elections continues.

The Post article recounts how Obama learned about the Russian intrusions and the administration's attempts to find support to make the information public.

"I think President Trump was legitimately elected by people who voted for him, but this is a very serious issue about defending democracy and our country and integrity of the election system", he told CNN's David Gregory on "New Day".

On Wednesday, Jeh Johnson, who was Obama's secretary of Homeland Security during last year's election, was asked by members of Congress about the timing of the administration's response - specifically why the voting public was not informed about what Russian Federation was up to until the fall of 2017.

The Obama administration first publicly announced Russia's alleged election meddling on October 7 but stopped short of saying that the efforts were aimed at helping Trump win.

That came after Trump had for months maintained that reports of Russian election meddling amounted to "a scam" cooked up by Democrats as an excuse for losing the election.

Interviews with administration officials revealed that Obama directly confronted Putin over the allegations during a meeting of world leaders in China. What we saw, or thought we saw, after that, it looked like the Russians stopped their efforts.

On Friday, he asked on Twitter why there had been no action and insisted investigators focus on Obama's officials "instead of T".

As one senior Obama official told The Post, "I feel like we sort of choked", which Trump would quote in his tweet.

His latest tweets came as the Justice Department and at least four congressional committees continue to investigate Russia's alleged election interference, including possible ties between Russian Federation and members of Trump's campaign team.